Crabby Mama

First Adam

6 months
20lbs 2oz (83rd percentile)
26 3/4 in (51st percentile)
head 43.5 cm (34th percentile)

Comparison:
Erin at 6 months
17lb 3/4oz (62nd percentile)
25 in (16th percentile)

Leah at 6 months
16lbs 8oz (52nd percentile)
25 in (16th percentile)

Even for a boy, Adam is a biggun. He got 3 shots, but now he doesn’t need anymore until he is 12 months.

Now, Leah at 5 yrs:
36.2lbs (24th percentile)
41 in (20th percentile)
BMI 15.1

She only gained a half pound since her 4 yr old appt, but she grew almost 3 inches. So the dr said that although she fell out of her curve a bit, she did the height thing this year instead of the weight thing. Which works out well for us because now she is tall enough to go on most of the rides at Magic Kingdom, even some roller coasters!

I wanted to note that going into the appt, Leah was super excited to get her “kindergarten shots” as she kept saying. I let her go first to get them out of the way. That kid did not want to hold my hand and did not flinch ONCE. I asked her afterward if they hurt and she said nope. Then she had to get a finger prick for the iron test and actually watched the tech prick her finger and siphon the blood off. She thought it was cool. I am SO proud of my brave girl, especially considering how freaked out I was about needles until just a few years ago.

Anyway, all is healthy and everyone is growing up quickly in our house. Next appt in August with Erin’s 3 yr and Adam’s 9 month.

Yikes! After swimming at Ray’s Splash Planet (indoor water park) yesterday afternoon, I thought Adam would take a great nap. Well, not so much. He only stayed asleep a little less than an hour. I tried putting him down for another nap between 3pm and 6pm and he was not having it. So at 7pm he went easily to bed.

11pm rolls around (I went to bed at 9:30, thank goodness) and he starts whimpering. It turns into full-fledged screaming so I go in there and rock him back to sleep. As soon as his head hits the mattress, he is screaming again. So I just leave him, since I am not doing him any good. I finally doze off at about 12:45 (and I can still hear him crying faintly through the monitor).

I jolt awake at 3:45 and Adam is crying. I have no idea if he ever went to sleep between times. I went in and decided to try to nurse him back to sleep. He did fall asleep, but of course woke up as soon as I put him down. I go back to bed and he cries. I turn off the monitor and doze off. Mike woke up at 5:30 and said he could not hear Adam so I guess he fell asleep sometime.

He woke for the day at 7:45 and went back down at 8:50 with a very low grade fever (99.4). By the time I got back from the preschool run (9:15) he was quiet. I REALLY hope today is better. I am gonna be cranky!

I think Adam has turned the corner in the sleep department. My old stand-by, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, has this to say about sleep maturation:

* 6 Weeks Old: Night sleep lengthens. This is in close range of the expected sleeping 7-8 hours by 7-8 weeks old for BW babies. For Baby Whisperer babies, Hogg says babies are sleeping about 6 hours around this age. So Adam did not do this. But has started sleeping close to 6 hours at a time this past weekend!!!
* 12-16 Weeks Old: Daytime sleep regularizes. This is around 3-4 months old. Adam is finally “getting” naps. He naps 4 times a day for between 1-2 hours each time. When he has too long of waketime he still naps and still falls asleep well with minimal crying.
* 9 Months Old: Disappearance of night wakings for feedings and baby drops third nap. I am happy to say my kids all slept through without eating long before 9 months old.
* 12-21 Months Old: Drops morning nap. Babywise says this happens between 14-22 months, so it is a pretty similar time range.
* 3-4 Years Old: Afternoon nap less common. (Non-existent in my case)

So we are just now seeing a night schedule of:
Bedtime between 7-8pm
Wake-up between 12-2 for feed
Wake-up between 6-7:30 for first morning feeding

Then I put him down no more than one hour after waking up for his first nap. The day goes from there. There is no set schedule for naps as far as times on the clock, but I just make sure that I try to put him down one hour after he wakes up and it takes about 2-3 minutes of crying lightly (usually) for him to fall asleep for an hour or two. All I wanted was for things to be a bit more predictable AND to get more sleep at night. Both things happened at the same time. This is one happy mommy over here!

Adam’s sleeping is getting SOOOO much better. Over the weekend he took at least one 2 hour nap a day and the other naps were averaging an hour apiece. Yesterday he took TWO 2 hour naps. Today so far, his first nap was 2 hours. I might have screwed things up though because I kept him up almost 2 hours so we could have our first outing to the gym (more on that in a minute). Hopefully that is not the case.

Also, yesterday I started feeding him from both sides at each feeding. The theory is that the reason he is waking up so often at night is because he is not getting enough calories during the day. So I am trying to up his calorie intake during the day in HOPES he will sleep longer stretches at night. Last night he ate at 7:45p, 11p, 2:30a, and then got up for the day at 6:30a. Still no longer than 4 hours at a time. I will continue to do both sides, since he seems to want to, and see where that gets us.

Adam went to the gym daycare today! I know he is supposed to be three months, but SHHHH don’t tell anyone. I think he is close enough to count. He woke up from his first nap at 10a, so I fed him and got us ready. We got there at 10:40 and I did about 50 minutes (4 mi on the bike and 1.35 mi on the treadmill). Then I got a protein shake for lunch (nutter butter=YUM!) and we were home by 11:55. He pretty much went straight to sleep. The daycare workers said he did GREAT and was adorable and talkative. At the end he started rooting, which is what he does when he is tired. I know I overextended his waketime, but how else will I ever get to the gym? Once or twice a week hopefully won’t make a difference.

I am SO over having kids who don’t nap. Seriously, two in a row??? I guess I was spoiled by Leah. And I thought I was some genius having a kid who napped religiously and easily no matter where or when. Apparently no thanks to me because I couldn’t get Erin and can’t get Adam to do it for anything. I was re-reading my blog today and found that Erin had the exact same issues at the exact same age as Adam is having. Only Adam is not sleeping as well at night as she did. Basically he wakes up 45 minutes into a nap EVERY TIME and will only go back to sleep if I do his whole nap routine again, sometimes several times. And sometimes he won’t go back to sleep at all and I just get him up. I wouldn’t mind this SO much if it didn’t make him SO cranky until the next naptime when we start this game all over again. I have gotten him to sleep in the swing or in my arms a few times and those naps tend to be long. Today he did the 45 min thing and wouldn’t go back to sleep. So I brought him downstairs and got him to fall asleep in my arms and he slept for 2 more hours. Um, seems obvious to me that the kid needs more naptime. But I can’t give it to him.

The icing on the cake is that he still wakes up every 3 hours to eat at night AND sometimes needs to be soothed back to sleep several times. I am becoming a zombie.

Adam has not been napping very well during the day. I am trying my hardest to do the Babywise method (eat, awake time, sleep, repeat every 2.5-3 hours during the day). But Adam will fall asleep within an hour of waking up, then will wake up again screaming after napping for only 30-45 minutes. He doesn’t get a full nap hardly ever during the day. After the 7pm feed though he sleeps from feed to feed with no wake time until morning. Well, I say with no wake time, but he usually has one 2 hour episode of grunting and fussing in his sleep every night. Anyway, I have not been able to get him to stay asleep long enough to get good rest during the day. That is why he always seems fussy when he is awake. *sigh* Maybe I am not very good at scheduling babies.

PS I let him cry it out (just a few minutes, went to comfort him, then a few more minutes of crying) in his crib this afternoon and he has been sleeping for an hour and a half. Maybe he is too stimulated downstairs with all the commotion.

Well, it turns out Erin had an ear infection. I took her to the dr on Monday because I had suspicions, and sure enough I was right. There weren’t really any symptoms though, just Mommy’s intuition. Since she has been taking medicine, she has been napping 2-3 good naps a day and going to bed between 6:30 and 7 as usual. Still waking up with the birds? sun? Nope, before either of them. But today she woke up at 4:30, took a bottle and went back to sleep until 6:45. That would be perfectly fine with me for the time being. We will work on eliminating that feed later. She is not taking enough formula before bed because her dinner is too late. Some adjustments need to be made.

Leah has had a mid-grade fever since last night. I gave her Tylenol before bed and hoped she would sleep it off. She woke up at 10:30 and 4:30, happy and alert, but still feverish. So I dosed her with more Tylenol each time (I had no Motrin). This morning, with the fever still around, I discovered that I had been underdosing her the whole time. So we went to the store to get Motrin and children’s Tylenol (instead of using up all of the infant one, she gets 2 1/2 droppers full now!). Leah also got a special McD’s lunch of chicken nuggets since she was a sick girl (as she told me every five seconds). During all this, she acted mostly like her normal self, maybe a touch less energetic. I would have been concerned if she has been quiet, but that did not happen. So we got home, I gave her the correct dose of Motrin and she has been asleep since about 1pm.

My babies need to get well, their PawPaw and Mimi are coming in 2 days!!!

So Erin slept from 5pm until 4:30am, when she guzzled down a 6oz bottle in no time flat. I put her back in bed and she talked to herself for a bit. I don’t know when exactly she fell asleep again because I turned her monitor down to where I could barely hear her and dozed off. I woke up to her talking again at 7am. It was very pleasant. Today though she may have dozed 20 min for her first nap. We kept her in her bed a solid hour. I just put her down 20 min ago and I just stopped hearing from her. Hopefully we get a good nap in this afternoon and we will have a bedtime of between 5:30 and 6.

UPDATE: Erin dozed for another 20 min for her second nap and went to bed, no problem, at 5:30.

I have a dilemma. Erin will not sleep past 6am. Most days she wakes up between 5:30 and 5:45, which is not acceptable in this house (especially now that Leah is not napping).

Here is what my idol says about wake-up time:
“Some babies tend to wake up early, 5:00am or 6:00am, and return to sleep after a brief feeding or diaper change. This is a true continuation of night sleep and not a nap. Other babies wake up later but start the day then. Most children will awaken to start the day about 7:00am, but there is a wide range (between 6 and 8). In general, it is not a good idea to go to your child before 6am, even if he is crying, because if you do, he will begin to force himself to wake up earlier and earlier in order to enjoy your company. The natural wake-up time seems to be an independent, neurological alarm clock in these young infants that is somewhat independent of the part of the brain that puts them asleep or keeps them asleep. In fact, despite what is commonly believed, you cannot change the wake-up time be keeping your baby up later, feeding solids before bedtime, or awakening your baby for a feeding before you go to sleep.” p.247

In another part of the book, he says earlier bedtime (of course, that’s the answer to everything). Two nights ago, I put her down at 6:15 and she woke up at 7:15 with poop. And last night I put her to bed at 6:15 and she talked to herself until almost 7 before falling asleep. She may be waking up because she is hungry, but if I go in to give her a bottle, it stimulates her and she is up for the day.

Do I need to temporarily go SUPER early? Like say 5 or 5:30? That cramps our life a bit obviously and that means Mike would not see her. But I guess if I start tonight, it’s okay because it is weekend tomorrow. Today she has slept a total of 45 minutes. That’s not a typo. A 25 min nap this AM and a 20 min nap in the car on the way home from the mall. She is currently in her bed talking to herself.

So we all agree? 5:15 bedtime tonight?

Thanks for your input.

7pm Erin goes to bed

7:30pm Leah goes to bed

7:45pm Watch Deja Vu with my mom (great movie!)

10:30pm Go to bed

11:15pm Erin wakes up and cries for 20 min before falling back to sleep

1:30am Leah wakes up crying, saying she has to pee pee. I take her and she gets back in bed.

2:20am Leah is crying again. This time she says “Mommy, I have a bad feeling.” What can I say to that? She gets in bed with me.

3:30am Erin wakes up to eat. Goes right back to sleep.

3:50am Back in my bed.

5:30am Erin wakes up and cries for 20 min.

5:50am I go in and try soothing her in her crib.

6:00am I change her diaper and nurse her back to sleep.

6:11am I am back in my bed.

7:15am My mom comes in to take a shower.

7:30am Leah wakes up and my day begins.

All I can say is, Mike is on duty from the minute he walks in the door.

PS Happy Mardi Gras y’all!